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If anyone ever thinks to compile a list of the 100 seminal audio papers that should be found in every tech-aware audiophile's filing cabinet, Harry Olson's "Direct Radiator Loudspeaker Enclosures" deserves to feature in it. Originally presented at the second Audio Engineering Society Convention, in October 1950, it was published in <I>Audio Engineering</I> in 1951. In 1969&mdash;in a rare and certain acknowledgement of its classic status&mdash;the AES republished it in its <I>Journal</I> (footnote 1).

At last January's Consumer Electronics Show, one of the more musically satisfying rooms I visited in Las Vegas' Alexis Park Hotel was hosted by Canadian magazine <I>Inner Ear Report</I>. I had visited the room ostensibly to take a look at the Audiophile APS AC regeneration system, but I also wanted to give a listen to the Gershman Acoustics Opera Sauvage speakers that I had agreed to review for <I>Stereophile</I>&mdash;not just the speakers in the abstract, but the very samples that, after CES, were going to make the trek to my Brooklyn listening room.

The oldest verified surviving recording is an 1878 tin cylinder of a talking clock (you can hear it at <A HREF="http://tinfoil.com/cm-0101.htm">tinfoil.com/cm-0101.htm</A&gt;). There's just one problem, however; the recording's surface noise is so pronounced that you can barely hear the featured attraction. Chalk it up to age, imperfect recording media, poor storage, or even to the ravages of mold, but the facts remain the same&mdash;we're in danger of losing our audio patrimony: the hundreds of thousands of historical recordings from the dawn of recording.

Since it has been five years since the debut of SACD, one might think that the debate as to where it fits within the audiophile food chain would have been put to rest. But as with most things audio, reality conspires to make rational comparisons between formats tough. One is never sure if two releases on different formats have been rendered from the same source, or, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11649/">as we discovered</A> with the recent <I>Dark Side of the Moon</I> hybrid SACD, from completely different masters.

<I>Stereophile</I>'s John Atkinson teams up with world-renowned recording engineer Tony Faulkner to create a landmark Mozart recording that has just been released simultaneously on hybrid SACD/CD, and LP. In <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/804k622">Project K622</A>, JA recounts the entire process, noting, "The upbeat is the most magic moment in classical music making."

Reader Gerald Neily is curious about the control issues our readers have. He would like to know if you use a remote with your audio system, and if so, how do you use it?

When we last heard from Englishman <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/990paravicini">Tim de Paravicini</A>, whose <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/404ear">EAR 890</A> amp I reviewed in <I>Stereophile</I>'s April 2004 issue, the veteran audio designer suggested that he could make a transistor amplifier equal in performance to any of his successful tube designs. Whatever else it may be, the new EAR 324 is my first chance to test that claim: a stereo phono preamplifier without a single tube in sight. It isn't TdP's first all-solid-state product: That would be the line-plus-phono EAR 312 preamplifier, introduced to no small fanfare a little over three years ago. For all intents and purposes, the 324 is a standalone version of the phono section of that $18,000 flagship: The designs are virtually identical&mdash;excepting, of course, their casework and power supplies.